10 Top Tips: The Desktop

Expert

10 top tips: the desktop

Discover toolbars, shortcuts and more

Expert

10 top tips: the desktop

Discover toolbars, shortcuts and more

First of all, right-click the Taskbar (that’s the area at the bottom of the desktop, which has your running programs on it) and untick ‘Lock the Taskbar’ to open it up for further experimentation.

Make the Taskbar bigger by hovering your mouse over the top edge until it turns into an arrow cursor. Click and drag to expand or contract the Taskbar.

Once the Taskbar is unlocked, just click an empty bit of it and drag it to the screen edge where you want it to sit.

Go to the Taskbar Properties menu. The Use Taskbar Icons checkbox enables you to choose how big app icons will appear on your desktop.

Use the ‘Taskbar buttons’ menu in Taskbar Properties to choose how icons on your Taskbar are displayed. If you’ve used Windows XP, try ‘Combine when Taskbar is full’ for a view you’ll be familiar with.

Set windows to cascade (to have them set on top of each other, with space to click each). Right–click the Taskbar and choose ‘Cascade Windows’.

Did you know you can launch a new window of any running program by holding [Shift] and clicking its icon on the Taskbar? Well, you do now.

Clicking the up arrow icon on the left of the notification area displays anything hidden. You can click ‘Customize’ to show and hide more notifications and running programs, too.

Stacking and side-by-side are useful options for window arrangement. Right-click the Taskbar and select the your option.

Right-click the Taskbar and select ‘Properties’. There’s an option there to ‘Auto-hide the Taskbar’ – this means you can make the Taskbar roll up and out of the way until you move your mouse to the edge of the screen it’s sitting on.

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